From time to time I get a little nostalgic to hear the clicking of the keys on an old typewriter. Of taking typing class in 8th grade with the fancy electric ball typewriters, and of typing my dad's sermons and practicing by typing song lyrics as they're played... so now I kind of want to find one to get back to it, plus typewriters don't leave a digital trail. I could RCTSOTB on a typewriter with no repercussions.

I checked Amazon, they're expensive on there. I'd rather try out the typewriter before I buy it to see if the 'feel' is right. I did find out about a place in Richfield, but it's only open like 3 days a week (but not on weekends) from 10-2 or something like that, which is when I'm working.

People ask Quezada to fix old typewriters they purchased on the internet. He sometimes buys them himself at thrift shops and flea markets. He recently found an Underwood from the 1940s at a yard sale.

In his backroom workshop on a recent afternoon, Quezada pulled handfuls of desiccated ribbon from the 70-year-old machine. He removed the rolling pin-like platen and coaxed tiny springs into place with hooked instruments that resemble dental tools.

If a reporter were not present, he said, he would talk to the typewriter, expressing his frustration with the machine’s finicky innards.

“I will say some things to the machine. I think it helps, when I let him know how I feel.”

But Quezada’s admiration for the machine is clear. The Underwood and its kind “are like Mercedes, like Rolls-Royces,” he said.

They belong to an era before planned obsolescence, when people did not just replace, but repaired, what they owned.

Unlike the pager, the PDA, the floppy disk and the VCR, the typewriter has escaped the heap of gadgets defunct and disused. The reason, according to Steve Soboroff, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission and typewriter collector: its slow pace is meditative, not frustrating, an exercise in deliberateness closer to engraving than typing on a computer.

“In a world that’s too fast and too easy, a typewriter slows you down,” he said. “If you type a word wrong, it’s wrong. If you miss a space, you missed it. That’s endearing to people now.”

Richard Polt, a philosophy professor at Xavier University and self-professed owner of 300 typewriters, said the machines’ performative use has helped spur a renaissance.

“Street typists,” like Quezada’s poetic clientele, became popular in New Orleans and have spread throughout the United States, Polt said. “Type-ins,” or gatherings of typewriter owners at coffee shops and pubs, are “a lot of fun,” he added, as are letter-writing parties.

Mark Soderbeck would agree. He owns Vale Typewriter on south Penn Av. in Minneapolis, which opened in 1956. Soderbeck came on board 20 years later and bought the shop in 1978.

In the 1980s, business “just blew up,” he said. “I mean, that was when the first electronic typewriters came out, with correction and everything. It’s like these iPhones … people went crazy.” The shop was regularly 100 repairs behind. But in about 2000, things hit the fan, said Soderbeck.

“We lost 80 percent of our business in about four years.” From 27 similar shops in the Twin Cities, few remained. He tried to get into selling computers, “but that wasn’t my cup of tea.” He hung on, though, and like Quezada, found that to be a wise decision.

Now? “Eighty percent of the business is young people,” he said. “They love them. One lady started collecting them. She’s probably 35. She types all the time. She types everything on them. Young people love the feel of them. I sell so many for Christmas for teenagers. It’s amazing how that works.”

Quezada took over his shop in the mid-90s. Though he’s held on, business gets leaner every year, the new interest notwithstanding.

But what else can he do? Besides, he feels there is an importance to his work beyond providing him a livelihood. “Like the poets, they want to communicate how they feel. It’s important,” he said of his clients.

“Or older people who cannot write anymore. I have older customers — they say they have to write something and they cannot hold a pen and cannot use a computer.”

He carries the old Underwood outside, satisfied that its innards are clicking. The sun is setting. He sprays the typewriter down with WD-40 and scours it with a toothbrush.

Beneath the blackened bristles, in the fading light, it begins to gleam.

A couple weeks ago I found a 1941 L.C. Smith Super Speed on Letgo for $15. I bought it and found a very old typewriter service manual online. After some fine tuning and cleaning it works flawlessly. It is in excellent shape. I don't know what it's worth exactly but I have seen similar condition & model on line go from $200-$300.

A couple weeks ago I found a 1941 L.C. Smith Super Speed on Letgo for $15. I bought it and found a very old typewriter service manual online. After some fine tuning and cleaning it works flawlessly. It is in excellent shape. I don't know what it's worth exactly but I have seen similar condition & model on line go from $200-$300.